05 July, 2012

Every year since 1997, Horb am Neckar has hosted a Medieval Festival in celebration of the signing of the Contract of Horb on June 10th, 1498. At the time that the contract was signed, Maximilian was King of Württemberg. Hence the name of the festival: Maximilian Ritterspiele. For more details, see the festival website.

The festival consisted of a medieval-style market with artisans selling their handiwork: blacksmiths, dyers, weavers, potters, shoemakers, armorers, tailors, you name it! Throughout the market there were also musical groups playing renaissance music on period instruments. A section of the city was set up as a medieval camp with meat cooking on open fires and knights lounging under canvas tents.

Perhaps the most exciting part of the festival that I saw was the knights' tournament. This event reminded me of my visit to "Medieval Times" near Chicago. The tournament was scripted, but the horses and lances were real. I put together a little video of the event including some subtitles of the dialog.

I was only slightly disappointed by the flag troupe which performed before the knights came on. They were doing some really cool tricks with the flags, but after watching so much Drum and Bugle Corps, well, it just doesn't compare. They could have done a lot better with just a snare and bass drum laying down a beat or even just a fife.

During the tournament, the knights competed in various tasks in order to win the golden sword which had been sponsored by the townsfolk. These tasks included grabbing goblets off a fence from a moving horse, hooking rings on a lance, spearing a mock-pig, shooting a mock-bear with an arrow and of course, jousting. The jousting was done with highly modified lances that shattered harmlessly on impact, but the riders still threw themselves convincingly mid-gallop from their saddles.

It was a summer day well spent at the Horber Ritterspiele. I would highly recommend any in the area next summer to stop by.

04 July, 2012

The first of May is a national holiday in Germany. It is tradition to go for a hike on the first of May, a.k.a. eine Erster-Mai-Wanderung. This year the weather was perfect for a long hike: temperature in the lower 70s, sunny, and not too windy. I went on a hike with some folks from church. We drove about 15 minutes out of town to a spring called Breitenbachquelle. There, we grilled some bratwurst and then set out on a long hike around the countryside. At the half-way point we stopped at a beer garden for some refreshment of the liquid bread type and then returned to where we started and grilled the last of the bratwurst. All told, I think the hike was about 11 kilometers long. Here are the pictures I took along the way:

03 July, 2012

Earlier this year I went to two very different Fasnet parades in nearby towns. Fasnet is the equivalent of Carnival in Southern Germany. It is celebrated the week before the beginning of Lent and, as I learned during my visits to Rottenburg am Neckar and Rottweil, it can be celebrated in very different ways.

I'm no expert on Fasnet parades. For details, you'll have to do research on your own. According to the Wikipedia article on Fasnet, it is a symbol of driving the evil spirits of winter out of the town. These spirits can take many different forms. In Rottenburg a. N., there are scary-looking witches that dump straw on you or vice-versa (yes, they also dumped people in buckets of straw).

But, there are also nice wood fairies (Narren) that gave kids candy. And occasionally there was a band playing "Guggenmusik." The Fasnet parade in Rottenburg had a much different feel than any parades I had been to in the US. There was significantly more interaction between the paraders and the spectators, the straw being one example. At first, I thought of it as rude that a complete stranger dressed up as a witch would dump straw on my head, but after a while I realized that it was all quite friendly.

In Rottenburg, the parade is open to Vereine (clubs) from different towns. A Verein might be a pack of witches or a troupe of fairies or a marching band. Each one has their own signature costume. Membership to a Verein of this type is gained by invitation only. The fairy troupes also have sets of bells that they wear over their shoulders. Here's a picture of one such fairy troupe:

The atmosphere at the Fasnet parade in Rottweil was completely different. First of all, it was not open to clubs from different towns, so the variety of fairy characters was limited. There is a list with pictures and German descriptions of the seven types of costumes here on the Rottweil City website. Each Narr had its own personality and interacted with the crowd accordingly. For example, the Federahannes carried long wooden poles with cow tails attached to one end with which they caressed bystanders' cheeks. It was quite bizarre to be approached by such a gruesome visage only to be gently petted on the cheek.

Other notable characters of the Rottweiler Fasnet were the Rössle (horse) and drivers. There were nine sets of horse and drivers throughout the parade. Each "horse" having two drivers who used very loud bull whips in order to keep him in line. Here's a picture of one of the trios:

In the above video, you can also see one of the marching bands that was at the parade in Rottweil. There were maybe four different bands present and they all alternated playing the same song. I didn't get a chance to ask a local what the song was, but I'm guessing it's some sort of town anthem. You also may notice in the video, that they are brandishing those whips right under the spectators' noses; another thing that would probably be avoided in the USA. But these guys knew how to handle their whips and I didn't see a single stroke fall astray.

Rottweil is a charming town in its own regard with wide streets and close-packed, half-timber buildings. A beautiful backdrop for a unique cultural experience.

30 June, 2012

This was too funny to keep to myself. While I was shopping at Penny Markt the other day, I saw that they had jars of marshmallow fluff in stock.

I was like "Oh, cool! I can make some fudge!" so I looked on the back for a recipe and found this fallacy of a marketing pitch:

"Fluffernutter: you can't get more American than that! The most popular sandwich in the USA! Spread a slice of white bread with marshmallow fluff, a second slice with peanut butter and then smack the two slices together. Your fluffernutter is complete."

I literally laughed out loud when I read that. I have never heard of such a sandwich. Am I an exception? Am I even American? Would anyone agree that Peanut Butter and Jelly is more popular by far than the fluffernutter?

16 December, 2011

I love being in Germany for the Christmas season. One of the highlights of this season is the proliferation of Christmas markets. Nearly every town has a market around the town-square. Sometimes they're only open for a week or one weekend, sometimes for the entire month of December until the day before Christmas Eve. Around here it's called a Weihnachtsmarkt, but to the East in Bavaria, they call them Christkindlmarkt or Christkindlesmarkt. At such a market, you'll usually see a number of booths selling assorted hand-made goods like candles, knitted winter-wear or soap.

Christmas markets are not just a place to get some Christmas shopping done. There are also grill-huts where you can get various types of Bratwurst or Schupfnudeln mit Sauerkraut, not to mention, Glühwein, which spiced red or white wine served hot. Interspersed among these booths are nut-roasting trailers. Those are my favorite because they always smell really good! They roast all kinds of nuts and coat them in a thick layer of pure sugar. They also usually sell ginger-bread hearts with little notes written in icing.

People will often make an evening of it: chat over a sausage and Glühwein then browse through the various stands and maybe even go for a round of ice skating.

There's also usually a nativity scene somewhere at the market. Reutlingen even has a couple of live sheep! Here's a short video I made at the Reutlingen market just last week. This band-stand is in the middle of the market. Before this group, there was a brass ensemble that played some traditional Christmas hymns.

I know there's a large Christmas market in Chicago, but I think in general, we're missing out on this in America. I think that's mostly because Germany (most of Europe, really) is a very pedestrian-friendly society. It's a lot easier to set up a walk-through, outdoor market when there's a large part of town dedicated to pedestrian traffic. This is the case in pretty much every German town I've been in. Towns around here that were founded in the middle ages (or earlier) are laid-out a lot differently than towns in the US that were first settled in the 1800s.

15 December, 2011

This post is part two of a series in which I am explaining little things that make life in Germany different than in the US. I'm trying to stick to physical differences rather than cultural differences because culture is rather difficult to take a photo of and put it in a blog.

This took a couple of tests before the significance of the two buttons truly sank in. It's pretty self explanatory: press the big button for #2s or the small button for #1s. This is one of the standard designs that I've seen all over Germany. Also, you'll notice that the tank is concealed in the wall; also something you don't see in the States.

Traffic light cycles

Watch the above video so you'll know what I'm talking about. The traffic lights in Germany when cycling from red to green include a momentary glimmer of amber. Besides that, it's the exact same set of three lights you'd see in the States arranged in the same order even: red on top, green on bottom. But that one slight difference is enough to remind me that I'm still in Germany. I have a hunch that the momentary "warning" before turning green is so that you can put your car in gear. Which brings me to my next point...

Manual vs. Automatic transmission

Unfortunately, I'd have to take a lot of pictures in order to prove this personally, but I can safely say that the majority of cars I've seen and been in here in Germany have been manual transmission. Even most of the charter buses I've been in were stick-shift. In fact, driving an automatic is almost looked down on. This works well for me because I love driving stick-shift and I wish more people in the States would share my opinion, but when I'm in Germany that's not an issue. I did just a quick search on www.autoscout24.de which has a listing of 930,000 used cars of which 708,000 are manual transmission. That's76.13% according to Wolfram|Alpha!

This is one little thing that is often frustrating for Americans when they first come to Germany. Some of us might be accustomed to separating recyclables at home, but not in every single building and residence! Germans are very serious about separating garbage. I heard, if you put something in the recycling which doesn't belong in the recycling, you could get fined. The rule that always works for me: when in doubt, Restmüll.

Okay, sorry, this one isn't very interesting, but it's worth noting. This is what exit signs look like here. It's a lot more universal than our exit signs.

I'm going to stretch my self-declared criteria of physical differences for this next point. I might be getting a little into language differences, but I'll let you be the judge of that.

How to write dates and syntax of mailing addresses
These are two things that are very easy to get wrong if you assume that the way we do it in the States is the universal standard. I don't know why the Germans do this differently, but they do. In Germany, dates are written DAY.MONTH.YEAR, no exceptions. This is very confusing if you're used to writing Month/Day/Year and can cause some major problems if you are trying to express any date during the first 12 days of any month. I've gotten in the habit of writing out at least an abreviation of the month as often as possible e.g. "15 Dec. 2011". That way I know that my meaning will be clear whether my audience is German or American. Also in Germany, you write the house number after the street name and the zip-code in front of the town. For example, the mailing address of the International Office would be written like this:

Reutlingen International Office
Alteburgstr. 150
72762 Reutlingen

Whereas the International Office at Valpo is:

Office of International Programs
1509 Chapel Drive
Valparaiso, IN 46383
The numbers are in the exact opposite position as we write them in the States! I'm pretty sure your letter would still arrive if you wrote it out the wrong way around, but it would probably be a little delayed.

If you ever find yourself in a German elevator (bzw. einem amerikanischen Aufzug für meine deutsche Leser), you might want to think twice before you mash those buttons. See, in Germany, the first floor of a building - that is, the lowest level with a door to the outside - is called the Erdgeschoss or "ground" floor. Then floors above the ground floor, die Obergeschosse, are numbered starting at 1. So, if you enter a building by the front door and go up one flight of steps, you're now on the "first floor" (for you linguists out there it makes a little more sense if you say it in German, "erstes Obergeschoss" which literally means "first upper floor"). In America, we skip this small technicality and number the ground floor - the first floor you would find yourself in if you entered by the front door - 1. Therefore, if you're at the top of a multi-story building in Germany, you would have to press "E", rather than "1", to get to the bottom. Otherwise you'll feel exceedingly silly waiting for the elevator doors to open and close on the second floor - which is actually the first floor. Again, to avoid confusion, I usually end up describing the floor I live on as the ground floor because that should also be understandable by Americans and I don't have to worry about getting the numbers confused in my head.

Talk about mundane details! But it's different, right? In the States I'm pretty sure all locks are installed such that the spiky side of the key is on top when properly inserted. This difference will probably make you feel dumb the first couple of times you go to unlock a room when you come to Germany, but I guarantee you'll get the hang of it pretty quick.
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So, there you have it! A few more things that make life in Germany just slightly different than life in the States; not better or worse, just different. I hope you've enjoyed reading. I may come back to this theme later if I think of enough little differences.

14 December, 2011

Germany and The United States of America are similar on many levels. They are both developed, modern, western societies where the freedoms of speech and religion are highly valued. There are some differences in the way the two Governments are structured and how they function, but in the end, they are both democratic. I'd say quality of living is about the same, at least compared to what I'm accustomed to. However, there are lots of little things that remind me every day that I'm not in America. These little things are not life-changers, but they are peculiarities that I would like to bring to the attention of my American friends. Disclaimer: I've spent almost all of my time in Germany in the southern part of the country, so some things that I find normal may be specific to this region. I'm not claiming to be an expert on all of Germany.

I've decided to split this list into multiple parts because I keep thinking of things to include. I will do my best to accompany every item with a picture or a video even. The links below the pictures will take you to the respective picture on my PicasaWeb Album where you can zoom in and examine every last detail.

The light switches are all rocker switches. I find this very convenient because it's a rather large target and it's easy to simply give it a whack to turn it off. I'm not sure I entirely understand the outlets, however. I can't see any way to make a polarized plug with such an arrangement because the holes for the terminals are the same size. The recessed sockets are also hard to clean and tend to collect dust.

Now, this one is brilliant in so many ways! This is a picture of the most basic hole-punch that you might find in Germany. Some of them have sliding guides that help you align the sheet, but that's not really necessary. If you look closely right in the middle of the two punches and just above where the paper would slide in, there's a little mark in the plastic. The idea is, you crease one sheet of paper by folding it in half (hamburger style) and then you line the crease up with that mark. This way, if you always use the standard A4 sheets of paper, the holes will always line up with each other. Another perk of the two-hole design is that you can fit both holes on the edge of a half sheet of paper, so it's a lot easier to put smaller-format documents in a binder alongside full sheets. One less hole also means one less dimension that needs to be controlled while manufacturing the hole-punch, so there should be much less variability between hole-punches from various companies.

The binders compliment the brilliance of the hole-punches well. Some key things to notice about the exterior of the binder are: metal protecting high-wear locations, hole on the spine to facilitate removal from shelf, slots on cover so that it can close all the way. Germans take their binders seriously.

The inside is also worth noting. The rings are not stupid and round, the locking mechanism is well-built, and that piece spanning the two ring-posts snaps down on top of the papers to keep everything from flopping around when the binder is closed. Binders are a very small part of life, but they are so completely different than ours in the US even though they serve the same basic purpose of holding documents together. Amazing, right?

This is a difference that you might not notice at first. I'm pretty sure it's some sort of law that you have to have a marking of volume on any beverage you sell in Germany. The three vessels pictured have examples of these markings. Whenever I order a drink in America I felt like I was getting ripped off because there's no way to tell how much you've been given. If the mark is on the glass, at least you know when you're being swindled.

Windows

I know, right? Something so simple, so straight forward, you might ask: how can it be so different? You'd be surprised at how fundamentally different windows in Germany are as compared with those in the States. First of all, they don't use screens here. I don't know if it's because bugs aren't a problem or they think it's a waste of time to put in screens, whatever, I've never seen them here. Second, they put the blinds on the outside of the window. Crazy, right? I actually like it better that way because you drastically reduce the amount of surface area capable of holding dust in a room when you take out the blinds. Also, blinds on the outside can prevent a little bit of rain from getting in. Third, windows here don't follow the two-pane, slide-the-bottom-up model that we're used to. No, they do this crazy thing where the window can either tip into the room from the top:

Both of these functions are controlled with the same single handle you can see on the left side of the window. (In these pictures you can also see my outside-the-window blinds.) This design has it's pros and cons. In the tipped position, rain can't get in unless it's accompanied by heavy wind. When you swing it open, you're opening the entire window, not just the bottom half like with US windows. However, either way, you need free space inside in order to open the window. With the sliding model, this is not an issue. Again, they're still windows, but they're just different enough to make an impact.